The Rigellians were up to something, no doubt of that They wouldn’t be wary and secretive about nothing. It was almost a dead-sure bet that they were digging a tunnel. Probably a bunch of them were deep in the earth right now, scraping and scratching without tools. Removing dirt and rock a few pounds at a time. Progress at the rate of a pathetic two or three inches per night. A constant, never-ending risk of discovery, entrapment and perhaps some insane shooting: A yearlong project that could be terminated in minutes with a shout and a chatter of automatic guns.
But to get out of a strong stone cell in a strong stone jail one doesn’t have to make a desperate and spectacular escape. If sufficiently patient, resourceful, glib and cunning one can talk the foe into opening the doors and pushing one out.
Yes, you can use the wits that God has given you.
By the law of probability various things must happen within and without the prison, not all of them pleasing to the enemy. Some officer must get the galloping gripes right under his body-belt. Or a guard must fall down a watch-tower ladder and break a leg. Somebody must lose a wad of money or his pants or his senses. Farther afield a bridge must collapse, or a train get derailed, or a spaceship crash at take-off. Or there’d be an explosion in a munitions factory. Or a military leader would drop dead.
He’d be playing a trump card if he could establish his claim as the author of most of this trouble. The essential thing was to stake it in such a way that they could not effectively combat it, neither could they exact retribution in a torture-chamber.
The ideal strategy was to convince the enemy of his malevolence in a way that would equally convince them of their own impotence. If he succeeded—and it was a big if—they would come to the logical conclusion that the only method of getting rid of constant trouble would be to get rid of Leeming, alive and in one piece. If—and it was a big if—he could link cause and effect irrevocably together they’d have to remove the cause in order to dispose of the effect.
The question of exactly how to achieve this fantastic result was a jumbo problem that would have appalled him back home. In fact he’d have declared it impossible despite that the basic lesson of space-conquest is that nothing is impossible. But by now he’d had three lonely months in which to incubate a solution—and the brain becomes wonderfully stimulated by grim necessity. It was a good thing that he had an idea in mind; he had a mere ten minutes before the time came to apply it.
The door opened, a trio of guards scowled at him and one of them rasped, “The Commandant wishes to see you at once. Amash, faplap!”
Leeming walked out saying, “Once and for all, I am not a faplap, see?”
The guard booted him in the buttocks.
The Commandant lolled behind a desk with a lower ranking officer seated on either side. He was a heavily built specimen. His lidless, horn-covered eyes gave him a frigid, unemotional appearance as he studied the prisoner.
Leeming calmly sat himself on a handy chair and the officer on the right immediately bellowed, “Stand to attention in the presence of the Commandant!”
Making a gesture of contradiction, the Commandant said boredly, “Let him sit.”
A concession at the start, thought Leeming. Curiously he eyed a wad of papers on the desk. Probably a complete report of his misdeeds, he guessed. Time would show. Anyway, he had one or two weapons with which to counter theirs. It would be a pity, for instance, if he couldn’t exploit their ignorance. The Allies knew nothing about the Zangastans. By the same token the Zangastans knew little or nothing about several Allied species, Terrans included. In coping with him they were coping with an unknown quantity.
And from now on it was a quantity doubled by the addition of X. “I am given to understand that you now speak our language,” began the Commandant.
“not much used denying it,” Leeming confessed.
“Very welclass="underline" You will give us information concerning yourself.”
“I have given it already: I gave it to Major Klavith.”
“That is no concern of mine. You will answer any questions and your answers had better be truthful.” Positioning an official form upon his desk, he held his pen in readiness. “Name of planet of origin”
“Earth.”
The other wrote it phonetically in his own script, then continued, “Name of race?”
“Terran.”
“Name of species?”
“Homo nosipaca;” said Leeming, keeping his face straight. Writing it down, the Commandant looked doubtful, asked, “What does that mean?”
“Space-traversing Man,” Leeming informed. “H’m!” The other was impressed despite himself. “Your personal name?”
“John Leeming.”
“John Leeming,” repeated the Commandant, putting it down.
“And Eustace Phenackertiban.” added Leeming airily.
That was written down also, though the Commandant had some difficulty in finding suitable hooks and curlicues to express Phenackertiban. Twice he asked Leeming to repeat the alien cognomen and that worthy obliged.
Studying the result, which resembled a Chinese recipe for rotten egg gumbo, the Commandant said, “Is it your custom to have two sets of names?”
“Most certainly,” Leeming assured. “We can’t avoid it seeing that there are two of us.”
Twitching the eyebrows he didn’t possess, the listener showed mild surprise. “You mean that you are always conceived and born in pairs? Two identical males or females every time?”
“No, no, not at all.” Leeming adopted the air of one about to state the obvious. “Whenever one of us is born he immediately acquires a Eustace.”
“A Eustace?”
“Yes.”
The Commandant frowned, picked his teeth, glanced at the other officers. If he was seeking inspiration he was out of luck; they put on the blank expressions of fellows who’d came along merely to keep company.
“What,” asked the Commandant at long last, “is a Eustace?”
Gaping at him in open incredulity, Leeming said, “You don’t know?”
“I am putting the questions. You will provide the answers. What is a Eustace?” Leeming informed, “An invisibility that is part of one’s self.”
Understanding dawned on the Commandant’s scaly face. “Ah, you mean a soul? You give your soul a separate name?”
“Nothing of the sort. I have a soul of my own and Eustace has a soul of his own.” He added as an afterthought, “At least, I hope we have.”
The Commandant lay back in his chair and stared at him. There was quite a long silence during which the side officers continued to play dummies.
Finally the Commandant admitted, “I do not understand.”
“In that case,” announced Leeming, irritatingly triumph-ant, “it is evident that you have no alien equivalent of Eustaces yourselves. You’re all on your own. Just single-lifers. That’s your hard luck.”
Slamming a hand on the desk the Commandant gave his voice a bit more military whoof and demanded, “Exactly what is a Eustace? Explain to me as clearly as possible.”
“I’m in poor position to refuse the information,” Leeming conceded with hypocritical reluctance. “Not that it matters much. Even if you gain perfect understanding there is nothing you can do about it.”
“That remains to be seen,” opined the Commandant, looking bellicose. “Cease evading the issue and tell me all that you know about these Eustaces.”
“Every Earthling lives a double life from birth to death,” said Leeming. “He exists in close mental association with an entity that always calls himself Eustace something-or-other. Mine happens to be Eustace Phenackertiban.”
“You can actually see this entity?”